Where have I been?

In New York mostly. But busy. When there is a spare moment I am faced with the decision. Quilt or blog. Quilting usually wins. Sorry about that dear followers. 


I'm sure you are asking yourself, 'Busy? Come on Bernadette, busy doing what?!' Well, first off, my sweet sister had foot surgery. She's fine, thanks for asking. But I have made several pillows for her recovery. Which is going really well (thanks to the pillows).

I especially like this one. I messed the proportions up a little and ran out of room for the 5th toe. Which prompted a discussion about Elaine Zayak. Apparently there are lots of things you can do without all the parts of your foot. This is excellent news for my sister who now only has one of her sesamoid bones.  

More soon... (really, I promise.)

Steampowered Rocket!

I got a new iron! It is light years better than the old travel iron that I had been using. The new one is fantastic and it looks like a spaceship, don't you think?

I'm not sure where the old one came from. I remember taking it to college with me. It was old then. It still works. Kind of. My only complaint is that it drools when it has water in it. So you get big wet patches. But it still makes fabric flat. 

I feel that having kept the iron in working order for so long, I am in a position to advise others on how to keep their irons going for years. The secret (in my experience) is to use it sparingly. Ask yourself, do I really need to iron that t-shirt? Probably not. Should I worry about these fold marks in my jeans? no. Does the fabric need to be ironed. Maybe sometimes.  


I hope the new iron lasts as long as the old one. 

The Tale of Two Couches

There once were two sisters living in a sunny Brooklyn apartment. The sisters liked open spaces for yoga and dance parties so their small apartment was minimally furnished. But it did have a couch. Much like the sisters themselves the couch came to the apartment by chance.  The little black couch was  a sidewalk find too perfect to pass up (from a time when bedbugs weren't a major threat). As time went on the perfectly suited couch aged. The springs gradually gave and the cushions sank to the point where sitting down gave you a close-up view of your knees. It had to go.

The sisters looked all over New York for a new couch. Finally they found it. It was perfect. The perfect height, the perfect length, a nice color. It looked fantastic and at a really great price.


The sisters couldn't wait for it to be delivered. Then it was. And they sat on it. (for the first time). Then they realized that you should sit on a couch before you buy it. It was less comfortable than the broken one. Whoops.


By now you are asking yourself, what does this have to do with quilting?  And the answer is pillows. They make it slightly more tolerable to sit on. Slightly. But they look great.

UPDATE: Third time's a charm! We finally found a winner. This couch is so comfortable. The best part about the new couch? The upholstery is really ugly.  Why is this good news? Because when it is covered in a sheet it makes the pillows stand out. Do you see that there on the left side? That's right, more pillows to cover! Can you tell I'm excited?

A Family Quilt

In February, Kim, a woman in the NYMod guild was interviewed for the QSOS project. She talked a lot about the other quilters in her family and how they collaborated on quilts. Inspired, I went home and called my mom. She was thrilled at the idea. So we started buying fabric. And more fabric and more fabric.

We chose this block. I saw it somewhere online. I'm sure it has a name. We made tons of these.

I mean tons!

We have decided to arrange the blocks so that the whole quilt looks like one big block. Of course this is going to result in one massive quilt. A massive quilt that is sitting in a bag at the moment. But hopefully it will get done this summer. Thanks mom, you rock.

Into The Deep

Behold! A quilt that takes you to infinity and beyond. This is The Vortex Quilt. Although I've been told that it also looks like parachuting jellyfish, an image that I quite like. I am very happy to have finally finished this! (thanks to Chris at the guild meeting for taking this picture)

It all started with this- a circular rotary cutter. It is so much fun! The point on the right marks the center and the mini rotary blade on the left side cuts a circle. You can adjust the size of the circle along the yellow arm. It's a fantastic contraption. I just kept making all sorts of circles and ended up with a pile of these purple and teal circles.

 I wasn't quite sure what to do with them. The original idea involved sewing them onto squares and then sewing the blocks together. But somehow that seemed like cheating, cheating the circles out of their glory. Sewing them to squares just doesn't do the circles any justice. So then they were going to be floating in space. Then I decided the space needed some sort of movement, a vortex.


I now know why quilt blocks are so popular. Quilting large curves is a huge pain. Luckily I had a little help from my pop. He is an architect with access to a large printer. He printed out the swirl design on two large pieces of paper and I cut the swirl strips using the paper as a pattern. It wasn't so bad. I was worried that at the end it wouldn't lie flat. But it did with the help of my trusty little iron.

I doubt I'm the first quilter to come up with this, but I'm giving myself credit for the discovery anyway, I've named it The Forward Press. You sew the curve like you think it should go. Then you open it up. Snip the seam allowance and iron. At this point, the curve will naturally do it's own thing and the curve may fall anywhere between an inch and a eighth of an inch away from the original seem. I then press this natural curve and re-sew along the pressed crease. The Forward Press. If you haven't figured it out by yourself, you read it here first. Unless you read it somewhere else.


This quilt got done by the deadline. My interview for QSOS oral history project. I had to bring in my 'touchstone' quilt. And since I've given away  all the other quilts I've made, I had to hurry up and finish this one. This was the first one I've ever made that wasn't to give away to someone else (it feels a bit selfish- not a lot, just a little). Thanks to David who conducted a great interview and gave me the always motivating deadline.

Brooklyn Quilt Show

One of the other things that have been keeping me busy is the Brooklyn Quilt show. I was very proud that The Fat Quilt that I made was on display with some of these amazing quilts. Here are a few, they were all spectacular. The show was an impressive collection of talent, like the one on the left by my friend Melissa and the one at the very bottom (you may recognize a certain good-looking quilter and her gorgeous sister in the photo).

Update

The good news is that I've been doing a lot of quilting. The bad news is that that leaves little time for blogging. The good news is that now I have a lot to write about. I know you've had to wait. It will be worth it trust me. However, now I have a decision to make. Should I update all my projects at once? Can you handle the onslaught of fantastic fabric art? Or should I break the fabulousness slowly and drip feed you project by project? Lets start small. I finished a name tag for the guild name tag swap. I drew my friend Jen. She is into healthy eating and seems to always be either quilting with or wearing purple. So I automatically thought, what is healthy and purple? No, not the hamburglar. I thought of an eggplant! I think the nametag came out really well. In the picture the eggplant looks blue but it is a rich purple, I promise. I had a lot of fun with this mini project. I'm looking forward to making nametag for Nichole.